


Like a Boss

by Medeafic



Series: Supernova [9]
Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: Controlling Behaviour, D/s, Light sadomasochism (scratching), M/M, lots and lots of talking, vague mentions of needles and knifeplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-21
Updated: 2011-02-21
Packaged: 2017-10-15 20:46:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/164790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medeafic/pseuds/Medeafic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chris and Zach work out some boundaries, and take 24/7 for a spin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like a Boss

Chris feels himself waking up, and fights consciousness because surely it’s too early, but starts to wonders why the light is different. He opens his eyes to unfamiliar surroundings and remembers. Hotel. Zach. _Suit_ , Jesus, brown shoes. Zach. He’s lying face up, so he doesn’t have to turn his head far to see Zach looking at him, propped up on an elbow.

“You know, you snore when you sleep on your back.”

“Do you have to watch me sleep like that? It’s creepy. Seriously, man.”

“Well, I didn’t want to _just_ watch, but with you being asleep and all…”

“I’m not going to object to being woken up,” Chris smiles, but then last night starts coming back to him – what he agreed to comes back to him. “Or wait, am I? Sex stuff is fine, but –”

Zach’s eyes crinkle. “Don’t worry. No waking up in pain, I promise.”

“Did we start already? The trial?”

“God, no.”

“So – definitely no waking up in pain during the trial? I wanna be clear about this.”

Zach flops back down on the bed. “Nope. I promise. I have no intention of sticking needles into you while you’re asleep, or anything else. Oddly enough, I prefer you conscious when I’m doing things to you.”

Chris shivers. “Good to know. When _do_ we start?”

“Christopher, you always get ahead of yourself. We haven’t even talked it out yet. Besides, I want to apologize first.” He rolls down off his elbow and snuggles in close, and Chris is still too dulled with sleep to realize what he means. Zach slides his hand under the sheets with a lazy smirk, wrapping his finger around Chris’s cock. “I like you like this, first thing in the morning, all hard for me.” Zach kisses at him, and Chris turns his face towards him automatically.

“Why apologize?” he murmurs around Zach’s tongue.

“I was mean to you last night. And I didn’t even let you come. So now you can.”

“Mm,” Chris agrees. Zach is gripping at his dick, and he’s getting harder by the second. “But you’re always mean,” he protests after a moment, pulling his mouth away. “What – ohhhh _kay_ , we can talk after.” Zach huffs a little laugh against his skin and Chris can feel his eyelashes, his eyebrows, the stubble grown overnight rubbing into his tender neck and shoulder, bruised from all the bites Zach has inflicted on him while he’s been here in New York. But most of all he feels that sure hand playing over his cock, jacking him briskly until his balls are drawing up and he’s gasping. “Zach, I’m – _fuck_.” He comes so quickly and so easily, he’d be embarrassed if he was with anyone else, but with anyone else it wouldn’t be so quick in the first place. Zach kisses him tenderly over the marks on his skin, milking the last of his orgasm from him.

“I’m sorry,” he breathes into Chris’s ear. “Sorry.”

It takes a while for the words to really penetrate, and by that time Chris is smiling and stretching and thinking _Good morning, World, great start to the day_. He yawns, wide mouthed. “Mmmmm. Totally forgiven. What for again?”

Zach strays his fingers across Chris’s stomach, wet with come, and lifts it to his mouth to suck. “Because I was mean to you. Unnecessarily.”

“There’s necessary meanness?” Chris laughs. “Ugh. I need to piss and shower.” He kicks his way out from under the sheets, heads to the bathroom. He can feel Zach’s eyes on his ass as he goes.

In the shower, he thinks right back to when everything started, how far it’s come, and suddenly it hits him, really hits him. What he agreed to last night. “Whoa.” He takes a sharp breath under the shower stream, and spends a minute choking up water.

“Are you okay?” Zach asks from outside, and Chris jumps, cracks his elbow into the tiles painfully, nearly slips on his ass in surprise.

“Are you trying to fucking kill me?” he croaks. Zach opens the shower door and looks at him like he’s not quite fully functioning.

“You seem to have that covered yourself,” he says. “I heard you hacking up a lung. And do we need to get you a non-slip mat?”

The cooler air rushes into the cubicle and Chris huddles under the water to keep warm. “Did you want something?”

“Wondered if you wanted company. We need to talk about stuff.”

“Right now I’m just trying to get clean, Zach,” Chris sighs. “You want a blow job, give me five.”

Zach looks disappointed. “I just wanted to talk. But okay.”

“Wait,” Chris calls when Zach reaches the bathroom door. “I still don’t get it – _what_ was unnecessarily mean?”

“Talk when you get out,” Zach says briefly, and leaves.

But Chris takes his time once he’s finished his shower, looking at himself in the mirror, making idle faces while he waits for a little time to pass. He brushes his teeth. Towels his hair roughly. His shoulders are yellow and brown and even purple in one place from Zach’s teeth. He has marks all over, in fact – byproducts, he’s always seen them as, and never resented them. He still doesn’t. If anything, he _likes_ them. But this 24/7 deal? What the fuck will he look like after that?

He stares at himself in the mirror, thinking about all the things that Zach has done to him. The things he’s encouraged Zach to do to him. Zach can be terrifying when he wants to be, but Chris has always had protection if things got too intense – his safe words. He’s not sure if he’s ready to give that up. In the cold light of day, going 24/7 seems overwhelming.

There’s a soft knock at the door, and he jumps again, just a little. “What?”

Zach opens the door. “Are you ever coming out?”

“Yeah,” Chris says unwillingly. It’s only after Zach closes the door again that he wonders about the knocking. Zach rarely knocks, not anymore. He takes it for granted that Chris’s private life is _his_ private life, which means, essentially, no privacy. They’ve argued about it before, and Chris pointed out that good relationships have personal boundaries. Zach listened hard, nodded solemnly, and kept doing the same things.

It drives Chris crazy sometimes, but he figures that Zach has Issues and doesn’t really get the whole Relationship Thing sometimes. And if it makes him feel more secure to be able to barge in on Chris any time he feels like it, well – Chris has decided he can put up with it. Although it’s not a two-way street. Zach always locks the bathroom door. And he still hasn’t given Chris a key for his apartment. Chris frowns.

It’s time to go out and face the music. “Jesus, grow a pair, Pine,” he growls at his reflection, and wraps his towel more firmly around his waist.

When Chris comes out, Zach is slumped on the couch watching the morning news and looks tense. “Finally,” he says. “We need to talk.”

But Chris finds his courage failing him. “I need to eat. And don’t you need the bathroom or something? Since I’ve been hogging it.”

Zach rolls his eyes. “Fine. And yeah.”

Chris calls room service when he hears Zach’s shower start, and orders the most elaborate things he can find on the menu. “Can’t talk yet,” he tells Zach when he emerges. “Room service is coming.” Zach presses his lips together and then opens them, but before he can speak, there’s a knock at the door. Zach strides across in his own low-slung towel to open it before Chris can protest.

“Breakfast order for Mr. Pine?”

“Thanks. Come in.” Zach waves the waiter and breakfast cart through, frowning a little at the sheer amount of food. Chris avoids his gaze.

The waiter doesn’t even raise his eyebrows as Zach, still a little damp and his towel sliding ever-lower, signs for the meal and tips him.

“Quick service,” he says to Chris after the waiter has gone.

Chris grunts.

“How about we talk over breakfast?” Zach suggests with a sharp smile. He starts laying out the dishes on the table. “Get your ass to the table, Pine. Let’s get it over with.”

Chris drags himself up and slumps at the table.

“You got me tofu scramble,” Zach says, pausing with the cloche in his hand. He looks surprised.

“Yeah. I figured you’d prefer that. For, you know. Your balance or whatever.” Zach usually goes the vegetarian route after they do anything particularly tough the night before. Chris, on the other hand, is already shoving bacon into his mouth. He’s unaccountably starving this morning. Besides, he needs to keep his strength up.

“Thank you.” Zach hesitates and then says, “I appreciate your kindness to me.”

And it’s just such a strange and oddly polite thing to say that Chris snorts around his bacon. “Okay, Spock, well, you’re welcome. Sit down and eat before it gets cold. Christ knows what tepid tofu tastes like, but it can’t be good. And we’d better talk _after_ breakfast. My mom would kill me for talking with my mouth full.”

Zach smiles an irritating, knowing smile, but sits down. He offers Chris some scramble, but Chris scrunches up his nose and makes an _ew_ noise. They fight over the last piece of toast and then the last cup of coffee, but Chris notices that Zach lets him win both times, and wonders.

After they finish, Chris insists on stacking the dishes neatly, and then decides he needs to brush his teeth again. Zach grabs him on his way out of the bathroom, and when Chris starts saying, “I just need to –” puts his fingers gently over his lips.

“Christopher. You just need to come and talk to me. Right now. Any more of this and I’m going to start thinking you’re avoiding me on purpose. But of course you’d never do that, right?”

Chris feels guilty, although Zach is smiling at him. He tugs the hand away from his mouth. “Okay. Let’s talk.”

“Come to bed.”

“I thought we were –”

“We’re going to talk in bed. You’ll have less chance to run away if I’m holding you down.”

Chris grumbles, but Zach is insistent, lying them down on top of the covers and wrapping his legs around Chris’s, an arm across his chest.

“So,” Zach says, and stops.

“So.”

They fall silent, until Chris starts giggling. “Can I go now?”

“Shut up,” Zach says crossly. “Give me a second. Or – why can’t you start?”

Chris takes pity on him. “What were you apologizing about this morning?”

“Oh,” Zach says vaguely. “Well. Last night.”

“What about it?”

Zach shifts, takes his arm and leg off Chris and folds his hands across his own chest.

Chris rolls onto him with a grin. “Any more of this and I’m going to start thinking you’re avoiding me on purpose. But of course you’d never do that, right?” He sees faint red marks appear high up in Zach’s cheeks. “Tell me.”

Zach gives a big, annoyed sigh. “Last night, I lost it a bit, my self control. And really, I was blaming you for something that wasn’t your fault. The other day when you were…I should have…I mean, I _could_ have safe-worded. And I didn’t.”

“Why didn’t you?” Chris feels heartsick again at the thought that he pushed Zach too far.

“Actually, that’s what got me thinking. I didn’t use the safe word because I wanted you to be happy. I knew what you wanted, I knew you wanted one more cut, so – I let you. Do you –” He breaks off and puts a hand over his eyes. “Fuck it. Do you just let me do stuff because you want me to be happy too? Are you just being kind to me?”

“Wanting you to be happy is part of it,” Chris says slowly. “But not the only part. I _like_ it, Zach. You know that. If you’re worried I just _allow_ you do things to me even though I don’t like it, I can tell you right now – you don’t need to worry about that. I’m not _that_ selfless, buddy.”

Zach is still for a moment, and then takes his hand away from his eyes. “I get a little insecure sometimes.”

“I’ve noticed. But that’s okay.”

“Well. Alright. I just wanted to apologize for last night. It _wasn’t_ fair. You were right about that.”

“Forget about it,” Chris says easily. “I didn’t play fair either. And besides – that’s part of your charm. I like your unpredictability.”

They both breathe for a while, in and out, and Chris can feel Zach’s heartbeat under his hand.

“I shouldn’t have sprung the idea of 24/7 on you like that.”

“Probably not, no.”

“But I did, and I still want it. Not just because of – what happened the other night, and not just for balance, but because I think it would be fun. With you. But – do you want it? I thought you did. You were all curious.”

“Curious, yeah. Scared shitless, yeah. But – well. It’s just a trial. Just a few days. I guess I can live with that.”

“Why so scared?”

“You’re a scary guy when you want to be, Zach.”

Zach looks pleased.

“Yeah,” Chris sighs. “I guess you _would_ take that as a compliment.”

“You seemed mad at me last night.”

Chris bites at his lips. “I thought you were still fucking with me. You’ve always said you never wanted it full-time, it was always just for the bedroom. And then suddenly you do a one-eighty, so yeah. I was confused. And I was mad at you.”

“You can say no.”

“I know that.”

“Because I feel like maybe I’m pushing it on you and –”

“Zach, you _did_ push it on me, but you know what, that’s okay. You like to push my limits, and I like that too. Besides, it’s not like you want to…” He tries to think of something terrifying that Zach _wouldn’t_ want to do, and simply can’t. “…get married,” he finishes weakly. “And, yeah, I’m curious. I’d like to have the full Zachary Quinto Experience, including 24/7. So we’ll do it.”

“If you’re sure.”

Chris nods.

“It’ll be more like 24/4.75 or something, anyway. Since you’re leaving soon.”

Chris doesn’t want to think about leaving, not right now, so he says nothing.

“I have _no_ idea why you like pain,” Zach says after a while, and starts laughing. “I mean, I get it intellectually. And I know the physiological stuff, I have to, to be safe and to make it good, but – I just don’t get it. It _hurts_!”

“Not quite as much as you had me believe,” Chris points out archly.

Zach looks a little embarrassed. “No. But – still. Painful.”

“You’re such a baby about it, seriously.”

Zach pushes Chris insistently back over so he can lie draped over him again. “But you know…you know I can’t do that, I mean, not regularly, let you top me like that or let you hurt me. I wish I could, for you, but it doesn’t work the same way for me.”

“I know.” Chris raises a hand to trace Zach’s mouth. “You are who you are. That’s fine.”

“But,” Zach says, and gives a big sigh. “But I want you to know, I think I could do it _occasionally_. For you. If you wanted me to. I know you enjoyed it, so…I can suck it up, for an hour or something. Every few months.”

Chris thinks about it, watching Zach’s face. He’s making a big sacrifice, and his eyes are round and dark. “You’re adorable.”

“Fuck you.”

“No, really. You are. I’m not being patronizing. And thank you – that’s very generous of you. But it seemed to shake you up a lot more than I intended, so –”

“It did, more than I thought it would. But that’s okay. It showed me your perspective, better than I really understood before.”

“Interesting.”

“Yeah.”

“I’d like to be very, very clear about this – are you saying, without actually admitting to it, that you think I’m _right_ about the power exchange?” Chris is grinning widely. He sees Zach try to stop himself, but his mouth twists upward as well.

“Maybe. It’s _not_ real, but – it _feels_ real. I get that now.”

“And thinking makes it so?”

Zach groans. “I can’t do _Hamlet_ before lunch, Pine. Besides, we have other things to discuss. Ground rules.”

Chris stops grinning quite as freely; if he admits it to himself, he thought even still that Zach might let him off the hook. “What did you have in mind?” he asks, trying not to sound begrudging.

“Why are you so worried about this? You’ve been trying to get out of discussing it all morning, and you’re really scared about it. Don’t you trust me?” Zach is not offended, Chris can tell by the tone of his voice. Just curious.

“It’s scary to me, giving up that much control to someone else, even just for a short while. When I first found out about it, when I was researching –” Zach snorts, and Chris kicks him gently. “As I was _saying_ , when I was researching, I thought it sounded like fun. But honestly, I don’t know if I have it in me to do it all the time, even for a few days, and I don’t want to disappoint you. And I don’t want it to fuck anything up between us. But as long as we can agree that things will go back to normal afterwards – okay. And I do trust you. I wouldn’t be giving away my safe words if I didn’t.”

“What are you talking about?” Zach looks genuinely confused. “No. You keep those.”

“But – you said, once, that you thought 24/7 was about me giving up my agency. I thought that’s what you meant. I thought that’s what you wanted.”

They stare at each other, and understanding flits across Zach’s face. “No,” he says again. “That’s not what I want, not at all. It’s no fun if you’re just an automaton. And you need your safe words. You need to be able to tell me if ropes are too tight or if something hurts too much or – or if you want to stop. If you want to stop the trial at any time, you can. No harm, no foul.”

“Oh.” Chris starts to relax. He was sure Zach was going to take away the safe words. “You said the safe words were my power in the situation. So I thought…”

Zach exhales a long, long breath, shaking his head. “You. Are. Terrifying. First of all, I’d never take them away from you. You need to be able to tell me if something’s wrong. And second…” Zach shifts around uncomfortably. “Maybe that power is not quite like I thought. Maybe – maybe it’s not as black and white as I thought.”

“And thus the teacher becomes the student,” Chris intones. Zach shoves him and they start pushing each other, giggling like a couple of school kids up way too late after lights out. Zach finishes it by grabbing Chris to kiss at him, still laughing against his mouth, and then they settle again, lying side by side, staring at the ceiling.

Chris feels better, after that, than he has for a few days. Relief is washing over him, making him feel energized. As long as he has his safe words, he feels – safe. He feels _enthusiastic_. “It’s awesome, right? This stuff we do.”

“How do you mean?”

“Fun. And exciting. Like making a movie, only real. It’s like an adventure.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

Chris thinks back on his other relationships. He’s felt love before, and joy and excitement, but with Zach, it’s different. It feels like anything is possible. Like he could say, _I want to fly out into the stars tonight_ , and Zach would say, _Yeah, that’s a good idea, let’s do that_. And they could actually make it happen, together, stand out on a rooftop somewhere and take off into the sparkling night sky. He feels a rush of feeling bubble up through him – gratitude. Wonders if maybe Zach feels the same way. He hopes so.

He grabs for Zach’s hand and squeezes at his fingers. “What rules do you want for the trial?”

Zach needs no time to collect his thoughts. “No collar. No honorifics. I wouldn’t be able to keep a straight face if you were calling me Master. Besides, that wouldn’t work in public.”

“Fine by me.”

“You do what I say, at all times. If I want to make a decision for you, you let me.”

“You…have been thinking about this a lot. Anything else?”

Zach shrugs into the pillow. “Obedience is the main thing. But part of the fun for me is watching you struggle. So I’ll probably ask you to do things you don’t necessarily like. Nothing too difficult, though. Also – I’d like you to take your clothes off inside, in the apartment. Or here.”

“I do that anyway.”

“I mean _all_ the time. I like looking at you.”

“What if I get cold?”

“Thermostat, Christopher. Turn it up.”

“What about the ozone layer?” Chris smirks at him.

“I think it can take it, for a few days at least. And – I don’t think you’re going to like this – I want you to write about it, in a journal. Not your personal journal, but a new one. And I want to read it, every night.”

Chris feels his metaphorical feet hit the ground. “No.” The word leaves his lips before he has to think about it.

“I thought you might say that.”

“That’s too much. That’s – no. You can ask me stuff, but I can’t…that’s too much, Zach, to write down what it’s like and show you, I can’t –”

“Calm down.” Zach snuggles into him, warm and almost purring into his ear. His hair is still damp and cool against Chris’s skin. “Why are you so afraid of _that_?”

Chris bites back a retort, and thinks it over. “I need _some_ privacy, Zach, you know? I need to know that there’s part of me that is _just_ for me.”

“But I want _every_ part of you.”

 _Well, you can’t_ have _every part of me_. But Chris keeps that to himself, for now. “It’s too much.”

“It’s just for a few days. It’s a trial. An experiment. If you really, really hate it, at the end, we never have to do it again.”

“Are you going to start guilt-tripping me if I keep saying no?”

“Possibly.”

“So you _still_ don’t play fair.”

Zach sucks on his earlobe for a second and then says, “Just this one thing. So I can see inside you again.”

“See inside me,” Chris repeats.

Sometimes Chris feels like their entire relationship is Zach asking for things and Chris agreeing. But on the other hand, that’s what makes it an adventure – he’s never found out so much about himself, so quickly. He’s never told Zach, because Chris would die of embarrassment first, but he thinks he _does_ have a hero-worship thing going on. Quite apart from loving Zach and getting annoyed at him and feeling happy when he sees him smile, Chris sometimes has a bizarre flutter-heart moment when he thinks about how _cool_ Zach is: how poised and how professional and how open and how creative and how controlled and how confident but insecure at the same time. How he actively struggles against those insecurities and refuses to let them overcome him. Chris has never known anyone who concedes their own flaws so openly and works so hard to be better.

And Zach, somehow, thinks Chris is cool too. Zach totally _is_ his hero, but it would be mortifying to admit.

“Why is seeing inside me so important to you?” he asks.

“Because I want to know every part of you.”

Chris doesn’t have the same kind of courage that Zach does, he knows that, and he also worries about what might be inside of himself. Something not so great, maybe. Something that might make Zach love him just a little less. But if Zach can do it…“What if you see something you don’t like?”

“That would never happen.” And the way Zach says it – it’s just a simple truth. It makes Chris believe it too.

“I am insane,” he tells Zach. “Clearly. But okay. I’ll fucking write stuff down for you. _Just for the trial_ ,” he adds, as Zach kicks his legs in the air like a vigorous, overturned turtle and does a victory fist pump. “And stop being so excited, you’re weirding me out.”

Zach attacks him, kissing hard at his mouth and down his neck, chanting, “Thank you thank you thank you.”

“Hang on,” Chris says, pushing at his shoulders. Zach has suctioned his mouth to Chris’s neck and pulls off reluctantly.

“What?”

“You haven’t heard _my_ rules yet.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh. Also, I think you just gave me a goddamned hickey.”

Zach lies back down, looking a little concerned. “What are your rules?”

Chris keeps a smile plastered on his face while he thinks furiously. “Well,” he says at last, “I don’t want to make things obvious, you know? Like, if we’re out somewhere, I don’t want you suddenly demanding that I suck you off under the table or something.”

Zach looks horrified. “Of _course_ not.”

“’Cause this is private, between us.”

“Completely between us. I would _never_ make other people feel uncomfortable. That’s like playing without consent. That would be incredibly wrong. And rude. And tasteless. And –”

“Okay, I get it, calm down.” Chris kisses him, watches the distaste fade from Zach’s face. “Also…does this mean you’ll be harder on me?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, physically. Because it’s just…I have a bunch of meetings and photo shoots coming up, so. You know. Marks.”

“I’ll take that into consideration. But…I do want to make you scream.”

“But I’ll still have my safe words.”

“Yep.”

Chris looks at him, doesn’t know if he should ask. “What exactly is the difference between what we’re doing now and 24/7?”

Zach considers, and then smiles. “Not entirely sure. I guess we’ll find out.”

“What are you looking for with your Jung stuff?”

Zach frowns a little, looks away. “I’m not sure about that either. I’ll know it when I find it. Do you have any more rules?”

“I can’t think of any more. Not right now,” Chris admits. “So…what next?”

“Next? Next I get that blow job you promised.”

“I never –”

“There was _definitely_ mention of fellatio when you were sulking in the shower.”

  
***

  
After Zach talks him into a few yoga asanas – and the fact that Chris now knows what that word means makes him want to laugh at himself – they head out for lunch, vaguely uptown, since Zach has a play reading at Columbia University in the early evening. There are photographers waiting outside the Bowery, so they get taken out a back door instead and jump into a taxi.

“Fucking paparazzi,” Chris spits.

“Hey, watch it. No exploding with rage. Not until after we eat, anyway.”

“When are we starting this trial thing? Because until then I am going to bitch about the fucking paparazzi all I like. And there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“We’re starting now.”

“We are not. Wait – really? For serious?”

“Yes,” Zach says firmly. “So no bitching about the fucking paparazzi.”

Chris gives him a wicked grin, and opens his mouth to say something needling, but Zach gives him A Look. “Don’t blow the very first test, Christopher.”

“There are tests?”

“Yes.”

Chris sighs, slumps back into the seat. “Fine. I’ll be good.” But his heart is beating faster. Zach never said anything about tests before.

They decide on a small bistro, and the hostess trips all over her words as she greets them. Zach takes it graciously, even when she asks for an autograph, and Chris studies him; he knows he needs to get better at that kind of thing.

“You don’t need that,” Zach says, after they’re seated and looking at menus.

“What?”

“The menu.” Zach smiles at his expression. “To think you’re actually surprised about that.”

“Yeah, to think.” Chris tosses the menu down, a little harder than he meant perhaps, and it skids across the tabletop to rest under Zach’s fingers.

“Good manners cost nothing, Christopher.” There’s that look again – that _I can make your life very difficult_ look.

“I’m sorry.” Chris tries to make it sound sincere.

“Apology accepted, but I suggest you watch yourself.”

 _This is what you agreed to_ , Chris reminds himself. And when Zach orders him a goddamn veggie burger with freaking carrot sticks on the side instead of fries, and bleu cheese dressing for his salad when he _knows_ Chris prefers ranch – it’s all he can keep telling himself. _You agreed to this. Suck it up, buddy_.

“If you’re good and eat it all, you may have dessert.”

Of course he eats it all. If Zach’s trying to wear him down, he’ll have to do a lot better than this. As it turns out, the burger tastes better than he thought it would.

“Would you like dessert?” Zach asks afterwards. Chris stares intently at the table while he deliberates, and then looks up and smiles.

“If you think I deserve it, Zach.”

“You’re a quick study.”

“It pays to be, with you.”

Zach laughs, a genuine laugh. “Pick whatever you like.”

Chris chooses lemon meringue pie, and Zach has a raspberry torte. Without asking, Zach steals more than a few forkfuls of Chris’s pie, but Chris says absolutely nothing about it. Zach watches his face when he slides his fork deliberately, slowly into the crisp white shell and pale yellow custard. And Chris watches him back as Zach sucks the tines of the fork clean.

“You’re being very good,” Zach tells him, going in for another forkful.

“Thank you.”

“It doesn’t bother you that I’m eating this?”

“Not really, no.”

“Last time you were very possessive of your food. Remember?”

“Last time you got pissed at me when I just gave in. But it’s different this time, right?”

Zach smiles his sharp bedroom smile, and it catches Chris by surprise. Zach rarely looks at him like that in public. It feels like a shot of adrenaline. “How is it different? Tell me.”

Chris shrugs. “Last time, I told you that you weren’t the boss of me. But that’s different now. For a couple of days, you _are_ the boss of me. Right? And you’re taking whatever you want from me, because you can. And that’s alright this time.”

Zach shifts a little in his chair, and murmurs, “Jesus, Christopher. Keep talking like that and I’ll have to drag you into the bathroom and have my way with you.” They look at each other for a moment before Zach grins, and Chris grins back.

“Regaining your balance?” Chris asks.

“Rapidly.”

Zach orders chai lattes for both of them, which have infiltrated even this thoroughly Italian bistro to Chris’s chagrin, and they talk about trivial things, easy and happy, and if this is how it could be, Chris thinks, then it’s not bad. Not bad at all. Apart from the chai.

“But you don’t _really_ want to control what I eat, do you?” he asks later, on the street.

“Not particularly.”

“Yeah, because you said before – that stuff gets boring.” Zach puts on his sunglasses and fishes in his pocket for earphones. Chris is determined to get an answer. “So it _was_ a test?”

“Of sorts.”

“What are you testing?”

Zach looks around to make sure no one is too close to them. “I’m just feeling out the boundaries, Christopher. Finding what we’re both comfortable with. Look, I’d better go, I’m seeing Corey before this play reading tonight. Go buy a notebook after your meetings, and start writing, like we discussed. I’ll meet you back at the hotel later.”

“Can’t we go back to your apartment?” Chris is tired of the hotel. He feels more comfortable at Zach’s place. The hotel feels too transient. But Zach doesn’t say anything, just waits. “Fine, whatever. Jeez.”

Zach tips his sunglasses slightly down his nose and looks at Chris over the top of them.

“I’m sorry,” Chris says between gritted teeth. “I didn’t mean to be rude.”

Zach pushes the glasses back up and smiles, his eyes inscrutable behind the dark lenses. “I’ll see you later, then. At the hotel.”

“Yeah. Later. Hotel.”

  
***

  
Chris thinks that his meetings today have been more productive, which means less bitching from his people, and fewer intrusive phone calls. He gets back to the hotel feeling pretty good, and waits for Zach. In the meantime, he writes.

Or tries to write. Everything he puts down seems stilted and superficial. He wants to cross out most of it, but he figures Zach wouldn’t like that, so he leaves it.

_Today you made me eat carrot sticks; it sucked. I would have preferred fries. But you know that. However, I enjoyed dessert. Zach, I have no idea what you want me to write here._

_I am worried about where this might end up. But on the other hand, it doesn’t seem like much has changed._

“It sure ain’t Shakespeare,” he says to himself, and then hears the door opening. He looks up, pleased. “Zach.”

“Christopher.” Zach pauses as he reaches the room, looking him over. “Is there a reason you’re still dressed? Something I should be aware of?”

“No, I was waiting. For you.” Zach looks at him, raises an eyebrow, and Chris feels a strange uncertainty flooding through him. Zach looks less happy than when they parted. “I thought that was just when you were here. I’m sorry.” He seems to have spent most of the day apologizing, and it’s getting old.

“Don’t be sorry. Be obedient.”

And Zach goes into the bedroom. Chris hears him making a phone call and feels a surge of annoyance. The whole _point_ of this nakedness thing is for Zach to _see_ it, not ignore it, so why should he be naked when Zach’s not here? And why is Zach not _watching_ him? He’s supposed to watch, like he normally does, watch Chris undress and then –

“You didn’t tell me I was supposed to be undressed even when you’re not here,” he says as Zach comes out of the bedroom. He’s down to his briefs now, and shoves them down defiantly, but Zach just walks past him to grab something from the mini-bar. “ _Zach_.”

“My play reading went well, thanks for asking,” Zach says, swigging from a water bottle.

“Oh.” He’d forgotten about that. “Well – good.”

“We’ll get room service again, for dinner. Since you’re so fond of it.”

Zach looks tired, Chris realizes. “Are you okay?”

“Just the day catching up with me.”

Chris wants to hold on to his irritation, but his natural concern overrides it. “Come and lie down for a while. You could have a nap. Then we can order dinner.”

Zach frowns. “I don’t want to nap.”

“But you look tired.”

“I said, I don’t want to.”

“But –”

“Could you just be quiet?” Zach snaps, and Chris shuts his mouth. Zach finally looks at him and runs a hand through his hair, closing his eyes for a moment. He walks over, and Chris fights the urge to duck and cover, but Zach hugs him. “I’m sorry. I know…you’re just concerned. I didn’t mean to snarl at you like that. That wasn’t fair of me. I’m just feeling on edge.”

Chris nods as Zach pulls away. _You’re not the only one_.

“Did you write for me?”

Chris silently passes him the new journal, and Zach skims it. “You need to write more,” he says briefly. “And about how you feel. But this is a start. Thank you.” He passes it back. “Why aren’t you saying anything?”

Chris resists the urge to roll his eyes and makes a flailing gesture instead.

“Ohhh, right. I told you to be quiet.” Zach grins. “I didn’t actually mean that as a command. Sorry. But – thank you for making an effort.”

“So I can talk now?”

“Sure. How did your meetings go?”

“Fine. Why are you on edge?”

Zach looks away, glazes over.

“Does the Honesty Policy still stand during this trial?” Chris asks pointedly, and watches Zach scrunch up his face.

“How is it that that always comes around to bite me in the ass? I was just thinking, a lot. About you and us and this. Wondering how much I can really take from you during this before it’s _too_ much. I spent most of my time with Corey thinking about how I wanted to take advantage of this situation, and then most of the evening feeling like I needed to reel myself back in, you know? So – I’m just feeling a bit all over the place. A bit drained. And by the way, I’ll never tell you to stop talking just to finish an argument. Even _I_ know that’s a bad idea.”

Chris nods. “Good to know. And Zach, you – you should just take what you want. That’s the point. If it’s too much, I’ll tell you, you have to trust _me_ on that. But I want to do this for you. And I want you to do it for me. You don’t have to hold back.” He’s petrified even as he’s saying it, but it’s true, that’s what he wants. “We’re doing it, so – we should _really_ do it.”

Zach stares at him, and Chris sees his expression change; the strain replaced by acute desire. Longing. And then he nods. “Alright. I’ll keep that in mind. Are you hungry?”

They order dinner, and Zach doesn’t say anything at all about what Chris can or can’t have, doesn’t take a bite of his food, and then they play Hangman until they argue about the correct spelling of ‘harquebus’, and there’s no dictionary. Zach is fired up and ready to go down and demand a dictionary from the front desk, but Chris is weak from laughter.

“Dude, in this trial thing, can’t you just say you’re right and that’s it?”

“I don’t have to, because I _am_ right,” Zach sniffs.

Chris is lounging across a footstool on his stomach, occasionally sitting back on his heels when his diaphragm complains. The nudity has become second nature to him as the night progressed, and even Zach isn’t gazing at his bare butt with quite the same intensity.

“So this is fun,” he says. “Although this feels like normal. I thought it would feel…different.”

Zach emphatically scribbles in the ‘h’ in ‘harquebus’ and smirks a little. “Feels different to me. I don’t have to actively exert control over you every second of the day just to know I _can_.”

“I guess,” Chris yawns.

“You guess? Christopher, if I wanted to, I could make you stand silently in the corner until I decided it was your bedtime. And you would do it. I could tell you to sleep on the floor all night. And you would do it. Or I could tell you to stay still on the bed and let me cut into you – five, six, ten times. And you – you would do it.”

Chris blinks, drops back onto his stomach again over the ottoman, and traces the pattern in the carpet. “Yeah.” He looks up again. “That is different.”

“Come here,” Zach says, his voice low.

“You’re not going to cut me, are you?”

“You don’t need to ask any more questions, Christopher. Just come here. Don’t make me ask you again.” Zach is lounging on the sofa, still in his clothes, with one of his long legs dangling over the armrest, and the other bent and planted on the floor. He looks relaxed, but his eyes are dangerous, Chris can see – too watchful. Predatory.

He pulls back to stand up, but Zach holds up a finger. “Stop. I think…yeah. I think I’d like to watch you crawl. Crawl over here on your hands and knees.”

It’s not like Chris hasn’t done this before for Zach, crawled to him, or that one weird time when he was pretending to be a dog. But it’s different, like this, when he knows Zach’s doing it just because he can. Just to prove a point.

_You agreed. Suck it up, or safe word out._

He sinks back to his knees and makes his way slowly across the thick carpet, around the coffee table, to Zach, who is sitting up now to watch him, his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. The whole way, Chris feels his face get redder and his cock heavier.

He stops in front of Zach, sits back on his heels, but he can’t quite look at him.

“How do you feel?”

Chris drops his head for a second, but then clears his throat and looks up. “Humiliated,” he says, looking straight into Zach’s eyes. “And turned on.”

Zach reaches out to pull him closer. “Good,” he says, before kissing him. “I have something for you.”

Chris tries not to cringe, but it’s difficult not to. In general, Zach’s presents are either really fun or really painful.

But Zach is pressing something into his palm, small, cold and hard. Chris opens his hand to look at it. It’s a key.

“I should have given you one before. I’m sorry. But now you have it.”

“Is this –”

“Yeah.”

“Your apartment.”

“Yeah.”

Chris can’t stop the wide smile splitting his face. “Thank you.” Zach shrugs. “You wanna go make me scream now?”

Zach laughs a little, but shakes his head. “Not tonight, no.”

“You have major plans coming up for that, huh?”

Zach raises his eyebrows. “I really _am_ getting predictable. Need to work on that.”

“Are we ever going back to your place?”

Zach swoops down to hug him tightly. “Of course. I want you there. But I wanted to get the talking out of the way first.”

“Come to bed and fuck me,” Chris suggests into Zach’s ear. “Show me who’s boss.”

Zach starts laughing.

“What?”

“Did you seriously just ask me to fuck you _like a boss_?”

“Well – I guess I did,” Chris says, smirking.

“Too much SNL for you, obviously.”

“I’m trying to be all sexy here, okay? Quit laughing at me.”

“You’re kneeling in front of me, naked, begging for a fuck. You don’t have to _try_ to be sexy, Christopher.” Zach stands up, pulls Chris with him, still chuckling. “Come on. I’ll fuck you like a boss, since you asked so nicely.”

Chris is starting to give more credence to Zach’s belief that sex makes everything better, because as soon as he’s on his hands and knees on the bed, the sheets yanked down and tangling around his legs, with Zach’s cock working its way into his ass, everything feels balanced again. All his worries about giving up control, all his regrets, just fade away, slip out of his mind. _This is how it’s meant to be_.

Zach is surprisingly gentle at first, until Chris looks back over his shoulder at him and says, “Like a boss, huh?” And then before he knows it, he’s spread-eagled on the bed, and Zach’s hand is underneath him, clawing into his chest, making him curse from the pain.

“Pretty much,” Zach says into his ear. “You need to learn to keep your mouth shut. Pushy. Suck on these, keep yourself quiet.” He drags his hand out from underneath and shoves his fingers into Chris’s mouth.

For a moment, Chris wonders if Zach has drawn blood from him, whether there’s blood under his nails. He feels a faint nausea, and pants around Zach’s fingers, trying to keep it together. He could swear his mouth is flooded with a coppery tang, but it fades so quickly that it must have been his imagination.

“What’s wrong?” Zach stills, deep inside his ass, breathing heavily but sounding alert. He pulls his fingers out of Chris’s mouth. Chris sighs in relief.

“Nothing. Keep going. Please. I want you to…” He wants Zach to fuck him hard enough so that he’ll get out of his own mind. But that’s not the point, not right now. “Whatever you want. Whatever you want from me.”

“Christ. You’re so tight like this. Yeah. Okay.”

Zach is pressed right up against him, his nose behind Chris’s ear and his front teeth scraping a little into his neck or shoulder as he thrusts, damp puffs of air pushing out of his mouth. It’s something strange, Chris thinks, that he’s been fucked like this before by Zach, but never felt so _owned_.

“Thinking makes it so,” he murmurs, as Zach pauses to catch his breath.

“You talk a lot when you’re getting fucked.” Zach nuzzles into the back of his neck again and shifts Chris’s leg up until he’s satisfied with the angle. “My Christopher. You like this?” He starts up a new rhythm, faster.

“Yes.” Zach’s body is warm and heavy on top of him, his hands and arms overlaying Chris’s; it feels possessive. His dick is rubbing almost painfully across the sheets beneath him. “Zach. I’m going to –”

“No you’re not,” Zach says immediately. “Not till I say. I’ll tell you when you can.”

“Yes,” Chris agrees, and he’s just hovering on the edge now, the edge of flying. But Zach nips his shoulder, and he’s back firmly in his body, feeling everything. The way their skin sticks together and peels apart, the faint current of air across his calves, the way Zach’s fingers clutch around his wrists, holding him in place.

Suddenly he stiffens, feels a thread of something instinctive running through him, galvanizing his muscles so that he seizes up for a moment. He wants to throw Zach off and then hold him down and fuck into _him_ ; he wants control too and it’s not fair, it’s not fair. But as the wave of it crashes through him he remembers the blood again, and his mind goes fuzzy.

“I think you’d better come for me now,” Zach tells him, breathless, and Chris has a second to wonder if he noticed, if he could read his mind, before Zach is pulling him up slightly and jacking him, and it’s all over a few seconds later, for both of them. Zach bites hard, but Chris barely registers the pain.

“Boss enough?” Zach asks later.

“Enough.” Chris is tired.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“There was a second there when you went all tense, like I hurt you.”

“You always hurt me,” Chris points out. “It was nothing.”

“I’m sorry, I’m going to have to call Honesty Policy on that.”

 _Shit_. “I was just thinking – I want to fuck you, Zach. And I know you’re not going to let me, so whatever. Forget it.”

“Oh, is that what it was?” Zach sounds amused, and Chris has to fight the urge to start an argument. He bites down hard on his tongue.

He’s almost asleep when Zach speaks again. “You ready for tomorrow?”

“Hm?”

“More tests tomorrow. Fair warning – I’ll expect more from you.”

Chris opens his eyes, stares into the dark. “Alright.”

“You’re sure you can handle it?”

 _No, I’m not sure_. But he smiles. “Like a boss, Zach. Like a boss.” He pulls his hand out from under the pillow, rearranging to let Zach drape across him, and it’s only then that he realizes – he’s still clutching on to Zach’s key. It’s dug into his flesh, and his fingers are stiff around it, but Chris ignores the pain.

He closes his hand over it again, tight and secure.


End file.
